Beyond You
by Diesel77
Summary: What happened in the church after "Beneath You"


Author: Diesel77

Email: summer_1212@hotmail.com

Notes:  Spoilers though 7.3

Beyond You

"Can we rest now?  Buffy, can we rest?"

His voice, thick with emotion and exhaustion, trailed away and she stood, gaping.  Her thoughts tried to organize themselves, like ants rebuilding their hill in fast forward.  Her body decided not to wait for her mind to catch up and carried her forward.  One hand, the faintest touch, and she startled as his flesh seemed to melt into her.  He slid, down, and she broke his fall, letting his weight lower them both to the floor.  With his trembling form huddled in her lap, she stared for a long time at the wisps of smoke still rising from the cross.  _Let it burn.  _

Oh so agonizingly slowly, her mind began to fight for focus.  Reluctantly, she dropped her eyes down to the figure clinging desperately to her lower half.  Her hands hung limply at her sides; she didn't want to touch him, didn't want to move, didn't want to bring his awareness back around to her.  He shivered, but was mercifully silent, at least for the moment.  There was a boulder in her throat that threatened to suffocate her if she moved, tried to speak.  Her thoughts simply couldn't manage to wrap themselves around what she had just learned. _For her.__ Why does a man do what he mustn't?  For her.  She still couldn't touch him. _

Selfish.  The word slithered into her conscious and she winced at its sharpness.  This suffering creature, this poor tortured….soul…had thrown itself, no, _himself at her mercy and she…what?  She didn't let him spontaneously combust, that was a start.  __Awful, cold thought. He __had helped her.  He had done what he could in the face of her misery and it had destroyed him.  And she knew she could not help him in return without destroying herself.  She had built an intricate framework, a web of happiness and sanity these last few months, and he simply did not fit in.  She was afraid to try to fit him in lest it all collapse and smother them both.  _

"And you had one, for your very own…." His voice was still unsteady, high pitched and weak.  She stiffened, not wanting to hear the rantings, the latest memo from the vampire poster child for the mentally challenged.  Somehow sensing her recoil, he scrambled to his feet and regarded her with most exposed expression of misery she had ever seen.  Her chin quivered as she stood unsteadily and took in his wounded, scarred form.  For one fleeting moment she wanted nothing more than to reach for him, to take him in her arms and feel the softness of her fingers in his hair.  _No touching.  She kept her hands helplessly at her sides.  _

"No, _you don't understand.  It all goes beyond you, __Buffy," he spat out her name with contempt, as if she were arguing, fighting back.  "It's not about you.  It's not always about you!" His voice rose in frustration until tears threatened to choke him.  And then the change again, the soft eyes and softer touch as his fingers brushed her cheekbone.  "So much strength.  So much power and strength inside…." She stiffened under his close gaze, involuntarily shied away from his touch.  "But you won't share, will you?" He dropped his hand, defeated.  "The slayer keeps all her goodies to herself.  She wants to watch him disappear."_

"No," she whispered, "I…"

"You," he crooked a finger under her chin, drawing her gaze up to meet his.  "Stay away from me.  Do you hear?  The spider _isn't home."  _

"What?" She shook her head, trying to convey sympathy through her confusion.  But it wasn't working, nothing was working.  She was hurting him, making it worse, and she saw danger in his eyes.

So she ran.  She ran as though the very hounds of hell were after her, and by the time she was tucked safe in her bed she had rebuilt her web of safety and sanity.  But it was weaker now, the strands stretched with the slightest breeze.  She couldn't risk breaking it, couldn't let it all come unraveled now, not when she was so close to…normal.  She would help him.  She would help him when she was stronger, when the web could support his weight as well as her own.  


End file.
